Dear Everybody,
I want to point out that the entity formerly known as
edconrad@prolog.net (and also edconrad@postoffice.ptd.net)
has lost his account for "Usernet abuse",
"Harassment","Flame bait" and "Receiving of Multiple complaints".
Of this we have a proof written by Ed Conrad himself, now
transformed in edconrad@sunlink.net, as it is explained in the
following post:
------BEGIN OF POST ONE ----------------------------------------------
Subject: BETTER than the SUPER BOWL (MacRae vs. Conrad)
Date: Wed, 08 Jan 1997 07:02:49 GMT
From: edconrad@sunlink.net (Ed Conrad)
Organization: SunLink
Newsgroups: sci.anthroplogy, sci.anthropology.paleo, sci.archaeology

[snip]

The fact is, Andrew, Prolog (PenTelData based in Palmerton, Pa.)
had terminated my services -- unjustly and quite improperly when all
factors are taken into consideration.

Joann Norwood, Customer Service, informed me in an Email dated Nov.
27, 1996 that it had been receiving ``multiple complaints from users
of our service . . . from sci.groups . . . of harassment. Please
review the FAQs before posting . . .
``Any further complaints will result in the immediate termination of
your service. Please contact this office if you have any questions."

[snip]

Lo and behold, two weeks went by and I received a snail-mail letter
from Prlog, dated Dec. 13, 1996, in which Ms. Barwood wrote:

~~~~~~~~~~~

Re: Termination of Account #007790
User Name: Ed Conrad

Dear Mr. Conrad:

This is to advise you that your above referenced account has been
terminanted for the following reasons:
Usernet abuse;
Harassment;
Flame bait;
Multiple complaints have been received.

Please contact our office if you have any questions regarding this
matter.
_______
[snip]

-------END OF POST ONE ----------------------------------------------

People new to the subject could wonder who is Ed Conrad
and why his former provider has received so many complaints,
this, unfortunately, is very clear to people like me that,
having a simple newsreader, are not able to set a killfile or
a filter whatsoever. In short words, Ed Conrad
has found a specimen that he pretends to be a "human bone
as old as coal" - given the age of the strata in which
he found the specimen this finding would be quite
important, if confirmed (please do notice the use of "if").
On the location:http://www.geo.ucalgary.ca/~macrae/t_origins/carbbones/carbbones.html
is presented an analysis performed by Andrew MacRae about the
same specimen, this page contains an ample review of the subject
so it is not the case to summarize it here.
What is worth to do is to present (edited for brevity and with
'^^^^' and '====' added to find out the important parts)
a new post by Ed Conrad himself about a third party analysis
about his (Conrad's) finding.

[snip]
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Andrew:
You have a short memory. Back on April 19, 1996, I posted the
following to talk.origins and other petinent news groups:
-----
Do I have AT LEAST one specimen of petrified bone discovered
between anthracite veins in the Carboniferous-dated strata of
Pennsylvania?
THAT is the question.
Back in January 1984, I sent one specimen to Yerkes Regional
Primate Research Center located at Emory University in Atlanta, Ga.
The following is the complete text of that letter (return address
removed):

Dear Mr. Conrad:
Thank you for your letter of January 10 and the information I
requested concerning the fossilized bone fragment sent to us for
=============
identification.
The information on location indicates that the bone fragment is not
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^=============^^^^^^^
from a nonhuman primate species: the only nonhuman primates ever found
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
in the United States became extinct about 20 million years agio, and
all of these primates were far too small to possess a bone that might
incorporate your fragment.
It is possible, however, that the bone fragment could be human in
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^==============^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
nature, but its structure tends to rule this out.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Its cross-section and size are possibly those of a longbone (humerus,
radius, ulna, femur, tibia or fibula). but in none of these bones is
there such a rapid reduction in cross-sectional area as occurs in your
specimen (see figure).
In conclusion, I do not believe there is any evidence to suggest that
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
the fragment is primate material.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
If you wish to pursue its identification, I suggest you send it to the
Department of Vertebrate Paleontology, American Museum of Natural
History, Central Park West and 79th Street, New York, NY 10024.
Good luck with additional enquiries.
Sincerely,
Jeremy F. Dahl, Ph.D
Affiliate Scientist and Adjunct Professor of Anthropology

cc: Dr. F. A. King, Director

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For your information, Andrew, Jeremy Dahl mentions that the specimen
he had examined is INDEED bone on three separate occasions
in his letter.
For him to deny that he said so would be an outright and outrageous
lie.

What I think may have happened is that Dahl might well have been
asked, ``when contacted by another party,'' if he felt the specimen
he examined was human, hominid or even primate material.

To that question, he rightly would have answered in the negative.
However, we are not asking THAT question. We are asking if he
determined that the rock-like specimen he had examined and tested
is bone.

To that, Jeremy Dahl had given a resounding YES (based on the fact
that he said so several different times in the letter).

Any subsequent denial by Dahl that he identified the specimen as bone
just doesn't hold water.

[snip]

--------- END OF POST TWO --------------------------------------------

Some people, probably more inclined to mercy than me,
have pointed out that the "gangbanging of the cripples"
(see Dejanews for the thread) is not a nice activity
and, actually, sometimes I feel guilty for partecipating to it,
BUT, fact is that Usenet has not rules.
However it is a non sequitur to
think that a free space imply as a consequence
an illimitable freedom and it is clear that even
a small amount of "ed conrad-like" users
could mean the death of any serious activity on
the Newsgroup. Last point: killfile or filter are
not a solution given that in order to filter a newsgroup
the newsreader has to download all the news. This
imply that if one is connected to the telephone
line during the filter operation then the reading
of the news will become more expensive, so that the users
that do not have available a "university connection"
tend not to partecipate to the news.
How will develop Usenet? A bunch of flame-baiters
and a group of university students volounteering to
stop them?
A solution to this problem could be something
like the one presented at:http://www.math.uiuc.edu/~tskirvin/home/daemons/kotm/#nominees
which I strongly urge you to visit.
Please do notice that (form this page):
-------------------
"The Nominees - December 1996 and January 1997"
/And the nominees are.../
*We've been having some troubles with Tim's news server down here*
/As a result, we lost December's nominations entirely/*Dammit.
We could've saved it, too, if C2 had stayed public...*
/Anyway, the basic result is that we're going to be putting December
1996 and January 1997 into one big award ceremony/"
-------------------

So register your vote again for:
'Ed Conrad as kook of the month Dec 1996 and January 1997'
by sending a mail to daemons@uiuc.edu containing your vote.